A Pretense or Two
by liltrix
Summary: Abed and Annie are alone in the study room, and both are finding it hard to concentrate. Abed/Annie. Oneshot.


**A/N: My first time writing Abed/Annie, or anything Community related at all. This was pretty much an excuse to write some sexual tension between the two.  
****Since I haven't written them before, please let me know what you think! :D**

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They are not characters, now. There is no pretense, no surge of bravery given by another persona.

They are just Annie and Abed, in the study room, and under coincidental circumstances, alone.

Abed notes the situation is a classic trope for two people to come together or for previously withheld feelings to be revealed. But Abed also notes that it is just he and Annie to whom this situation has been placed upon, and therefore, nothing of the nature can occur. Obviously, he and Annie are not inevitable. Abed had decided a long time ago that the most logical romantic outcome of the study group would be Annie and Jeff.

As he studies Annie's lowered eyes and her curtains of hair, Abed wonders vaguely why he feels a rush of a foreign emotion (something akin to… disappointment?).

Annie sits across the table and appears to be mesmerized with her textbook. Unbeknownst to Abed, however, studying is the last thing on her mind. The words on the page meld into an indecipherable mess as she feels her thoughts grow muddled. She simply cannot concentrate, and she doesn't know why. It's not as if she hadn't been alone in a room with Abed before. But something has changed recently. Something important.

The fact that she knows Abed is staring at her makes it increasingly difficult to pay attention to her book. In fact, she's sure she's skimmed the top paragraph half a dozen times. Annie feels her body begin to tense, her hands folding in her lap until they are tightened into balls, her toes curling slightly in her shoes, her shoulders rising, her elbows locking. Her heart begins to pound with such intensity she is worried Abed, somehow, will hear it.

Taking a sudden risk, Annie quickly raises her eyes from the text to across the table.

Bad move. It takes everything in her not to look away again, simply out of the utter _intensity _of Abed's gaze. When her eyes first meet his, he blinks, and looks a little surprised, but doesn't look away. He is not, after all, timid in the slightest.

Annie's heart is palpitating faster now, and she's rather worried for her health. A sort of tingling runs through the tips of her fingers and down to her toes.

Glancing at her watch, she sighs inwardly as she realizes that her next class is still a half hour away. She isn't sure she can stay in this room any longer without feeling like she'll explode. And she doesn't know why. With Abed, normally everything is so… _comfortable_. It was like there had been a shift recently, something the two of them dance around and avoid.

Annie decides to go ahead to the bathroom before class to fix her hair (and stall for time). She struggles to collect her belongings, hands shaky, palms clammy. This is beginning to feel suspiciously like when she and Jeff had been prepping for the Debate tournament her freshman year, and Annie would rather not dwell on why.

Across the table, Abed is, for the most part, collected. But on the inside he is experiencing turmoil he has never felt before. It is different from the warmth and acceptance he normally feels around Annie. No, ordinarily he is quite at ease around her. This is definitely different.

Slinging his book bag onto his shoulder, Abed moves towards the door and turns to Annie to say something along the lines of "see you later" but they turn at the exact same moment and somehow end up a bit too close together in the confines of the doorway and he feels his breath catch in his throat.

They both stop.

Annie is looking at him, eyes wide, brows furrowed. Abed sees her face is red, and for a reason he can't explain, his heart begins to beat a little faster. He swallows. This sensation is so foreign and unexplored that he is almost afraid.

Similarly, Annie's heart is speeding too, blood rushing into her face. She doesn't really know what's happening or why they stopped in the middle of the doorway, and she just can't _think _because all she can pay attention to are Abed's deep brown eyes and his lips that have, in fact, touched hers on more than one occasion and she finds her thoughts drifting back to those moments with an ardent longing.

Acting on a sudden impulse, Abed brings his hand to Annie's cheek and pushes a piece of stray hair away from her face. He hears her breath draw in.

"Your hair was disarrayed," he says simply, as if this was a logical explanation, and to Abed, it is.

"Oh," Annie exhales shakily.

They stand there for another moment. Abed's hand has not left Annie's face. With bravery that has probably been prompted by adrenaline, Annie brings her hand up to rest over his on the side of her jaw. She feels him twitch a little under her touch. His skin feels warm.

Annie doesn't know what she's doing, she only knows that she doesn't want to give up this contact and Abed is not doing anything to stop it. In fact, he is not doing anything at all. He still stands in front of Annie, looking confused and rather lost, with his hand under her hand. She begins to move closer toward him, her eyes fluttering, glued to his lips with a hunger she had not known existed until now. It is as if some other being is controlling her body, and she has absolutely no power to quell it. Not that she wants to.

Abed feels his pulse racing. His thoughts jumble, and he cannot pin one down and focus on it. He cannot, in fact, focus on anything except the way the lights of the study room soften Annie's skin and the way her eyelashes curl and hide her eyes as she drops her gaze. He is unable to react to her proximity other than his body's rising tension and desire.

As Annie leans up, Abed leans down, and their noses graze.

His breath is hot on her face, and Annie almost wants to moan out of the pleasure she feels at being this near him. She is so, so close to ending any space between them-

"_Attention, Greendale!_"

The sound of Dean Pelton's voice on the speakers fills the silence of the library, and Annie jumps away from Abed, startled out of her dream-like state. Abed stays frozen, staring at her, his eyes slightly wide. The Dean is rambling on about something but Annie can't process it.

Annie's heart pounds wildly in her chest as she tries to get ahold of herself. "I, uh… I have to get to class," she manages to croak out, her voice sounding odd to her own ears. The heat in her cheeks intensifies, spreading to her ears and down her neck, and she wonders how silly she must look.

Abed's hand hovers in the air like a question where it had left Annie's face as she jerked away. "Okay," he replies. "I do, too." His voice is devoid of emotion, but Annie can see his face tell a different story. She cannot decipher it, exactly, but she thinks she sees traces of distress and impatience in his expression, as if something has been taken away from him that he sorely needs. And- she wonders if she is imagining it- he looks almost flushed in the face as well, but the darker tone of his skin makes it hard to tell. He certainly does not look like himself, though. In fact, this is the closest to flustered Annie has ever seen Abed.

Abed feels a burning in his face and wonders if it's noticeable. He can't seem to think straight enough to question why he is feeling so out of sorts, even though normally analyzing this type of situation would be a snap.

But it's different. Because she is Annie and he is Abed and these things don't happen between people like them.

"Um… well, bye!" Annie says, in an attempt to be cheerful and with a smile that looks more like a grimace. She hurries by with her head ducked down, and Abed watches after her.

He is experiencing an overload of emotion that he isn't used to and therefore does not know how to react to, so he doesn't. He just keeps standing there, letting his mind replay the way Annie's pretty eyes had penetrated his own, and the way her skin had felt when their noses touched. He remembers the way her hand had enclosed his, and how he had immediately felt each one his senses sense heighten by the touch.

Abed entertains the idea that maybe (possibly, perhaps) he and Annie are outliers in a sea of romantic inevitabilities and that the classic tropes can be applied to them. He entertains this notion for a moment and then dismisses it, because he believes he's giving himself a sort of false hope. A new wave of confusion courses through him as he wonders why he would _want _false hope concerning Annie. He shrugs it off and heads on his way to class, not realizing that both he and Annie are tip toeing around their feelings and avoiding what is plainly in front of them.

Abed doesn't realize that he and Annie now have a pretense in real life as well.


End file.
